Umno leaders have second thoughts about teaming with Bersatu in GE15

 

Umno Advisory Council chairperson Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah has revealed that many leaders in the party now have second thoughts about working with Bersatu in the next general election - as such a team-up may not be beneficial to Umno.

“We are still thinking about it. What do we stand to benefit from standing together with Bersatu? We will have to fight for seats,” he said, without naming any leader.

The Umno veteran also expects the next general election to see both Umno and Bersatu fight over the Malay seats and that would include Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s Pagoh constituency in Johor.

“My solution is simple - we will contest what was ours. Pagoh and Langkawi are our seats," Tengku Razaleigh, who is widely referred to as Ku Li, is quoted as saying by The Malaysian Insight.

Langkawi is the constituency of former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad. Umno lost several seats after the party's lawmakers defected to Bersatu.

“We want to stand in Pagoh. We are confident we are going to win these seats with proper strategies,” the Gua Musang MP said.

Many Umno members opposed working with Muhyiddin, the president of Bersatu, but had gone along with the party for the sake of the country.

Muhyiddin Yassin

“We hoped for good cooperation despite a lot of us not agreeing to it. A lot of people who support Muhyiddin are traitors – people who have left us and people with issues that are unforgivable.

“We should not even be supporting them, but we want to see a better situation, especially with Covid-19 affecting the country," he said.

Tengku Razaleigh also opined that Umno, as the biggest party in the ruling coalition, should hold important portfolios in the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government.

“We have widespread influence and we will ensure stability. We should be given the important portfolios because we have the influence,” he said.

For this reason, Tengku Razaleigh said he had quizzed party leaders when Umno was not given the lion’s share of seats in the cabinet for backing Muhyiddin.

“I asked the party leaders why we did not helm the new government. We had given our support to avert a crisis.

“They did not have the answers,” he added. - Mkini